


Diplomatic Complications

by Sixthlight



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, I don't have a problem I can stop writing these AUs anytime I like, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Political Shenanigans, Slow Burn, Vaguely Renaissance-Flavoured But Not Actually Historical, strong cameos from Andy and Nile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27231373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: There can be no misinterpretation or confusion on Yusuf’s part when what Duke Nicolò says is “But I didn’twanta husband, what does my brother think he’s doing?”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 81
Kudos: 1155





	Diplomatic Complications

Yusuf had anticipated a lot of things on his sea journey to his new home; he had had almost nothing but time to anticipate things. What his new husband would be like; whether, as he had been promised, he would have time to work on his art, rather than the fussy day-to-day management of accounts; whether he would like his new role as the husband of a Christian duke; what would be expected of him.

“Normally I would have declined this, politely,” his uncle had said, “but…Yusuf, we know the management of trade does not interest you. You like the journeys well enough, but we have people for that; as a member of the family, you can help us much more with this marriage than in any other way. The routes this will open up…but I do not want to send you into a marriage that would be impossible for you; you must say if that is so.”

Yusuf had known his uncle meant it kindly, but the truth was, his place in the family had always been a little awkward, ever since his parents had died not long after his birth, and his father’s sister and her husband had taken him in. In some ways it would be a relief to leave. He had signed the betrothal contract willingly.

But the closer he gets, the more nervous he becomes. A different land; a court, though not a great one; an entirely new family, that he would become part of. He had thought when he signed that it might be pleasant if his husband did not care for him and he was left to his own devices, but he has realised on the journey, missing his aunt and uncle and cousins, that this will not be so. He likes people; he finds it easy to care for them; he would hate it, to not be cared for in return.

He determinedly observes all the good things about his new city. The weather seems pleasant, or at least it is on the day they make port. There are no signs of great poverty, although surely the ruling family must be in need of coin; Yusuf is not unaware that this will have been his main attraction as a husband. Some of the buildings are beautiful. All in all, he manages to keep himself in quite a good mood, which lasts right up until they arrive at the palace and he is presented to the duke.

Duke Nicolò is much of Yusuf’s own age, handsomer than Yusuf had any reasonable right to expect in a husband arranged for him in such a way, is dressed soberly but well after the fashion of the city, speaks clearly but not loudly (as Yusuf is already finding many in this city do, when they assume him to have a poor grasp on the language), and looks Yusuf in the eye when he does. Which means that there can be no misinterpretation or confusion on Yusuf’s part when what he says is “But I didn’t _want_ a husband, what does my brother think he’s doing?”

Yusuf’s heart promptly sinks through the floor. This is not an auspicious start to his marriage.

“You signed the betrothal contract,” he says. “I saw the copy myself.”

“He said it was a trade alliance!”

“It’s written right on it! Can’t you -” Yusuf chokes off the word _read_ , which is uncivil.

“Read Arabic script? No,” says the duke, who has an unimpressed look that suggests he has taken the incivility as read.

Yusuf opens his mouth, then closes it; there is nothing he can say. This is the worst day of his entire life. He is aware that on the greater scale of things, there are much worse indignities, but this is the one that is happening to him _right now_.

“Perhaps,” says the woman standing next to Duke Nicolò – Yusuf had not been introduced to her so he had no idea who she was, and her lack of a Ligurian accent and southwestern look did not help – “we should take this somewhere less public, and talk about what is to be done?”

“You’re right, Nile,” the duke says, sighing. “Let us do that.”

*

The duke’s closest advisors consist of Lady Nile (who seems to be what Yusuf would term his wazir, but doubtless they call it something else here), Captain Andromache, who apparently captains his guard – this is a little unusual in a woman, but she does not look like to take questions about it – the chatelaine of the palace (that word Yusuf does know), called Quỳnh, and a man called Sébastien who is apparently the mayor of the city.

“Nile,” says the duke. “Please explain how it is I come to have a husband I knew nothing about.”

“A fiancé, technically, your grace,” says Lady Nile. “But as you know, a betrothal of this sort is nearly as hard to get out of as a marriage.”

“I would like to know how you came to know nothing about it, too,” Yusuf says. “I didn’t come here to be foisted on anybody.” If he treats it as a negotiation, nobody will notice that he has nothing to bargain with and desperately wants to hide. He cannot imagine his aunt and uncle sending him knowingly into this situation.

“This is what happens when you sign things your brother gives you without reading them,” Andromache says pointedly.

“It was in Arabic!”

“Only the first page,” Yusuf points out, at the same time as Nile-the-advisor does. They share a rueful look; he likes her immediately, for the small piece of shared ground.

“I see,” the duke says, looking at the copy Nile has given him. “I…see.”

“I know this was just after your mother’s death,” Nile says. “It was a difficult time.”

“That isn’t an excuse on my part.” His voice is clipped.

“Look,” Yusuf says. “If I am that displeasing to you, surely you can just divorce me.” He feels bad saying it because his family does very much want this arrangement; he should argue their part; but he can hardly sit here and demand to be married to a man who has said flatly he doesn’t want a husband.

Everybody looks at him as though he has said something highly ignorant, or baffling. He flushes. “Can you not?”

“They’re not going to grant a divorce, or more accurately an annulment, without cause,” says the duke. “Would it be that easy, in your country?”

“Yes,” says Yusuf.

The duke rubs his forehead. “Could you all – I would like to speak with Signor…” He has to glance down at the document. “Yusuf. Alone. Quỳnh, could you see about arranging rooms?”

“Of course,” murmurs the chatelaine; she exchanges a glance Yusuf can’t read with Andromache the guardswoman. The mayor seems grateful to escape. Nile hesitates, but leaves with the others.

He doesn’t even remember Yusuf’s name. This is absolutely _fantastic_. Just the marriage Yusuf always dreamed of.

“I want you to know,” the duke says from behind his desk, “this really isn’t…I’m sure you’re…” He trails off.

“Please,” Yusuf says, feeling very tired, “don’t bother. Your grace.”

“Would it be a hardship,” the duke asks, quietly, “for you to return?”

Yusuf does him the courtesy of thinking this over. He is irrationally annoyed by how attractive the duke seems, in this moment, looking at him with concern. Yusuf had told himself strictly not to expect anything. He had not been expecting the duke’s elegant figure, or his sea-green eyes, or the line of his neck; Yusuf isn’t sure whether he wants to lick it or paint it. And the only question he has for Yusuf is whether it would be a hardship for him to return unmarried whence he had come. It is incredibly unfair.

“Not in any of the ways you probably mean,” he says. “A little humiliation never killed anybody.”

For some reason, this causes the duke to flush. “I see.” He coughs. “Ah. Lady Quỳnh will show you to your rooms, and…I will consult with the bishop, but I expect…you may be here some time before matters can be…arranged.”

“Then I shall attempt to treat it as a stay for pleasure,” Yusuf says, “and not anything else.” He gets up and leaves. It’s probably rude. He is really past caring.

Of course, the minute he leaves the room, he realises that he has no idea where anything is in this large but seemingly quite empty palace, nor where he might be supposed to go. It is tempting to try and return to the ship, which will still be in port, but – he knows enough of these things to know that if he goes, the betrothal will certainly stand. Yusuf would quite like to marry _someone,_ one day. For a number of reasons. So here, he supposes, he will stay.

“Oh, good,” says someone; he turns to see Nile. “I hope the duke didn’t – he’s one of the kindest people I know, normally, but this is very…very stressful.”

“I’m sure it is,” Yusuf agrees. She winces.

“Listen. I need – we need to have a discussion, about how this has come about. Will you walk with me? I know Quỳnh is still arranging your rooms.”

She takes him out into a courtyard that centers on a fountain full of beautiful statuary – life-like beasts and humans, such as you would not see in the palaces of Yusuf’s home, not that he has spent any time in them. It is very different, but he can appreciate the craft all the same.

“I imagine you’re wondering,” she says, “what on _earth_ is going on here.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Well.” She folds her arms. “I suppose it started with – the thing you need to know is – I’m sorry, this is complicated. How much do you know about the royal family here?”

“Almost nothing,” Yusuf says, “except that I was being betrothed to the youngest son, who is a duke, because my family wanted trade access and his wanted funds. I could have sought to know more. I didn’t.” He is aware, now, that having agreed, he was worried he would find out something that would make it seem like a bad idea. Perhaps that wasn’t the best route to take.

“I see,” says Nile. “Well…then I’ll start at the beginning.”

The beginning, as Nile sees fit to explain it, was that the prince Duke Nicolò’s father had married twice. His eldest son was now prince in his stead. Duke Nicolò had inherited rulership of this city and its lands through his mother, and that only because his next-eldest full brother had died in a horse-riding accident, followed in short order by his father (of age) and his mother (of a winter illness).

“Which is why we are all still in mourning,” Nile says, gesturing to her clothes. “For the princess. The duchess, as she was better known here.”

“Ah, of course,” says Yusuf, who had entirely forgotten that people wore black for mourning here. “But I do not see how this explains anything.”

“The catch,” Nile explains, “is that his brother the prince has many children and would very much like to give one of them the title, even though he was not Nicolò’s mother’s son. Before his brother’s accident – his other brother -”

“He seems to have so many,” Yusuf says, dryly.

Nile laughs. “Only three, and the third is fortunately not relevant to this tale. Anyway, before that, the duke was intending to go into the Church – I know there are some Christians in your land, so I presume you know what that means. He was still considering it, but I had persuaded him to wait until he was done mourning for his mother. And I fear what has happened is that his brother the prince has arranged this marriage so when he rejects it for the Church – as he is likely to do, because he is a man who does not enjoy being caught off-guard – none can say that his brother did not attempt to do right by Nicolò, and he can take the ducal title with everybody’s goodwill.”

“And what is meant to happen to _me,_ in this instance?”

“Not being in the prince’s confidence, I could not say, except that he has many children and I am sure you could be wed to one of them. Probably one of the younger ones, as you bring wealth but no lands or title.”

“I could not object to that in principle,” Yusuf says slowly, studying the fountain, “having agreed to it once already, but…I do not like the idea of being a chess piece in somebody else’s game. Nor of being something to flee from.”

“Good,” Nile says, a little viciously; he looks over at her, surprise. “The thing I have not told you, yet, is that the duke is a good ruler and his brother is not. We do not wish him to cede the title – I mean, myself and his other advisors, and I believe also the people of the city. So, please. If you can find it within yourself. Stay, and marry him.”

“I can’t _make_ him marry me,” Yusuf points out. “I am alone here. And if it is truly his wish to go to the Church, who would I be to stop him? I met him an hour ago.”

“You are really extraordinarily well-suited,” says Nile, and leaves him in the courtyard.

*

It is spring and sunset is not late, so after Quỳnh shows him to his rooms, Yusuf has time to pray before dinner. It is not as helpful as he might have hoped. He simply does not know what he is supposed to do. He was prepared for all manner of receptions. He was not prepared to be entirely unwanted. He cannot rationally think it is a matter of his own person, when _I didn’t want a husband_ was the very first thing the duke had said, but that does not mean it doesn’t feel like it is.

He dines with the duke at a table which is much too large for two people. They are seated stiffly in upright chairs. Yusuf knows how to use the cutlery, had in fact practiced in preparation for this marriage, but it does not come naturally. The food is all strange in a time when he badly wants something comforting and familiar. They exchange perhaps five sentences with each other, which are all stilted and do not cover any topic more controversial than the weather.

“I hope you will not be uncomfortable during your stay with us,” is the last thing the duke says to him that evening.

“I hope so too,” says Yusuf, which is less than gracious, but again: he does not know what else to say.

*

Yusuf had come prepared to be left to his own devices; that, at least, is not a great problem. However, he had also expected a full court, not one duke with no living relatives and a small number of advisers who, as far as Yusuf can tell, don’t all even live in the palace. So he is perhaps left a _little_ more than he had anticipated. Anyway, he goes to sleep planning to spend the next day on his art, with no regrets and no duties left undone, but when he wakes, it is raining, a cool grey drizzle. It will not be pleasant to stand in and certainly he cannot sit outside and sketch in it, as he had planned. After all this time at sea he has little taste for staying confined to one room for too long.

So instead, he starts making a map of the palace, on some spare scraps of paper. He confuses at least ten servants and gets lost five separate times. It’s worth it, though, because on the fourth time he finds the library. It isn’t the grandest he’s ever heard of, but – compared to what he had _thought_ he might find in this city – it’s a balm to the soul. Even if everything is in Latin, and some Greek.

The palace, as he has wandered through, has not been as grand as he might expect. There is little that is shiny and new-gilded; he could see, walking, why the duke’s brother might have wanted him to marry for money. But they have wealth in books. Yusuf knows how much a codex sells for on this side of the sea.

He loses track of time to the extent that he is politely interrupted by a servant, sent by the chatelaine, to ask whether he means to eat something for his midday meal.

“But it is only – oh,” Yusuf says, realising how hungry he actually is. The weather has stayed grey and he had not had the guidance of the sun. “Yes, thank you.”

By the mid-afternoon he is leaning on a reading stand, deciphering what he thinks is an entertainingly dubious translation of Ibn Sina’s geography. He is so lost in it (and, to be perfectly honest, the somewhat hard to decipher text) that when he realises the duke is standing about two feet away he yelps and clutches the reading stand. This will, of course, definitely persuade the duke that he’s marriage material.

“I see you like the library,” says the duke.

“The best thing I’ve found so far,” Yusuf says, enthusiastically, and then realises – “not that the rest of the palace isn’t lovely.”

The duke blinks, like he’s been reminded of something he didn’t know he’d forgotten. “Did I not…ask Quỳnh to assign someone to show you around? You _found_ it?”

“I don’t think you did, no,” Yusuf says, as diplomatically as he knows how. “And I’m sure she is very busy.”

“Oh,” says the duke. He does not follow this statement up.

“It’s alright,” Yusuf says. “I’ve been making a map.” He gets it out of his sleeve. “Although, I suppose it isn’t very helpful to you…”

The duke shrugs. “It’s not for me, so I don’t see a problem with that.” He inspects it, a smile curling the corner of his mouth. “I wish it was, though. I’ve lived here nearly all my life and I still get lost sometimes. When furniture gets moved.”

Yusuf doesn’t actually believe this, but it’s the kind of small lie that people tell because they want to make a connection, so he doesn’t mind.

“I can make you a copy,” he says. “In Latin. Although, you might have to tell me what some of the rooms are actually called…” He taps one of the labels. “This is more of a description. Or a guess.”

“That would be the….let me see.” The duke leans on the reading-stand as well, frowning down at the makeshift map. He is, Yusuf realises, casually dressed, missing the outer jacket that men wear here when they are dressed formally. His sleeves are rolled up. He looks a little less like a duke and a little more like a man called Nicolò. Yusuf finds he likes it. “The small reception room.”

Yusuf is wearing his own clothes; he had, everybody had, assumed that his future husband would let him know how he was expected to dress, in his new home. And now it doesn’t matter, does it? “Small reception room?” He makes another note. “Well, that isn’t what I called it.”

“What _did_ you call it?” the duke asks, really smiling now, like he’s enjoying himself. He’s much better-looking when he smiles. For some reason, parts of Yusuf other than his brain are having trouble remembering everything that has happened since he got here; remembering that he’s not marrying this man after all.

“The large room with tapestries,” he says. “I don’t see how it’s a _small_ reception room.”

“Only compared to the main hall, which I don’t think you’ve found yet.” The duke taps a spot off to the side of the map. “I _will_ make sure Quỳnh assigns you someone. I really do apologise.” He steps back. “But I’m interrupting your reading.”

Yusuf opens his mouth to say that he doesn’t mind, but the duke vanishes around the corner of a bookshelf. Probably, Yusuf decides, for the best.

*

Over the next few days, he encounters the duke in the library no less than three separate times. It becomes quickly obvious that he regards it as a personal space to which he can retreat, because on two of those occasions he is found and taken back out of the library by Nile. Yusuf would feel guilty about spending so much time there but, under the circumstances, he doesn’t think he really has anything to feel guilty about.

To be fair to the duke, he doesn’t seem to regard Yusuf’s presence as an imposition.

“I’m glad to see that you are finding so much pleasure here,” he says, the third time, which is after the evening meal, and therefore does not end in him being reminded of other duties.

“It’s a very fine collection,” Yusuf says, truthfully. “Did you assemble it?”

“My mother, mostly,” says the duke. “When I was growing up.”

“Forgive me for asking – but you lived here? Your father’s seat is elsewhere, I thought.”

“My parents,” the duke says, very neutrally, “did not have the happiest of marriages; my brother and I were brought up here.”

“I see,” Yusuf says, though he doesn’t particularly. His aunt and uncle always seemed very happy. His parents were too, he is told. “Well, I approve of your mother’s tastes, then.”

The duke looks at him consideringly for some period before saying “Even though half of it is religious works? At least.”

“I’m not going to criticize somebody else’s devotion, even if it isn’t to my own faith.” Yusuf looks at him curiously. “And I thought – again, forgive me – you had that reputation as well.”

“Yes,” the duke agrees, and hesitates. “Signor Yusuf. I do not think you need to beg my forgiveness for anything. I am aware of the situation I have put you in.”

Yusuf mutters something and makes an early night of it. He does not want to be reminded of what he wakes up every morning and thinks about.

The next day, he is intercepted by Andromache before he can return to the library, or get lost, or begin sketching, which have been the principal occupations of his days here.

“I’m here to show you the palace,” she informs him. “I hope you like walking.”

Yusuf is confused. “I thought you were the captain of the guard.”

“I am.” Andromache takes his elbow. “But Quỳnh said you were supposed to be shown the palace, and I thought that it was time we talked. Nile says that you wouldn’t object to marrying the duke?”

“I don’t see how that matters,” Yusuf says.

“Maybe it doesn’t,” she tells him very cheerfully, and proceeds to lead him up and down and sideways until he would be entirely turned around, if it wasn’t for the fact that he insists on stopping and adding to his map every so often. It’s an effort not to smudge the charcoal. Andromache’s view of the palace is very specific to her position; she reveals to him the locations of five stabbings, three invasions (if you can call it an invasion when the invaders are close relatives of the then-occupant), one alleged strangulation, and one –

“I don’t know that word,” Yusuf says. “ _Defenestration_? How do you kill someone with a window?”

“You push them out it.” They are on the highest floor, with a glorious view out over the harbour; however, the room itself is some sort of storage attic.

“Yes, well, that would do it,” Yusuf says, observing the distance to the ground. “Captain Andromache, is there a reason we’re recounting this building’s bloodiest moments?”

“Being married to a duke isn’t always a peaceful endeavour.”

“Your duke isn’t marrying me, however.”

“Yet.” Andromache studies him. “I wasn’t going to do this, but…you have to promise this won’t go on your map.”

“What won’t?”

“First you promise.”

“I promise,” Yusuf says, sighing. Andromache grins, and leads him to a blank spot in a nondescript wall, in the oldest part of the palace.

“Watch this,” she says, poorly-hidden glee dancing in her eyes, and presses on one of the stones. There is a slow rumble, and a section of the wall swings, very slowly, outwards.

“A secret door!” Yusuf says, unable to not be delighted by it.

“Yes!” She pulls him through. The passage is very narrow, and dark. He follows Andromache carefully. She points out three spy-holes, and warns him before they come to an even narrower spiral staircase, which goes down and down and then emerges, suddenly, into an armoury on the ground floor. Yusuf blinks frantically at the return to daylight.

“Are there _more_ of those?” he wants to know.

“Only the one.” She brushes some dust out of her hair; Yusuf pats his, more carefully. “It’s not exactly a secret, most of those rooms are only used for storage now, and to use it you have to be well into the palace anyway…but I thought, since you were making your map, you might enjoy seeing it.”

“I did,” Yusuf tells her. “It’s like something out of a story.”

“Well, that’s the palace,” Andromache says, brushing off her hands. “And I need to get back to my work. I’ll show you how to get back to your rooms.”

Yusuf looks around at the racks of blades and long guns. They are polished and gleaming, but the room does not feel like a display; the racks and benches have signs of wear. He suspects Andromache is good at her job.

“Do you know how to use a blade?” Andromache asks him, pausing in the doorway.

“Not this style.”

“Hmmm,” she says, and comes back in. “We have a few odds and ends…” She kneels down in front of a chest. “Any of these?”

He kneels down next to her and goes through it, carefully. These blades are not as well-cared-for as the ones the guard use. None of them are familiar to him, but there is one with a single edge and enough of a curve that he thinks he could use it in the way he knows. He gives it a couple of experimental swings.

“This one,” he says. “With practice.”

“Keep it, then.” She shuts the chest, and stands. “And come and practice with us, sometime. You can’t draw all day.”

“Why?” He can’t help but ask.

“It might be fun,” is all she says.

*

Yusuf feels very silly walking through the palace with a naked blade in his hand, but nobody challenges him on it, although he does walk past Quỳnh, who gives him a very curious look – though one that seems more curious about him than the sword. In truth, Yusuf has only had to use a blade in earnest twice in his life, and his uncle always made it clear he had more use for Yusuf with a pen than Yusuf with a sword. When he was very young he’d fantasised about running away and having adventures with a sword in hand, but it had become evident very quickly that there weren’t a lot of those adventures to be had. Still, he has a moment, walking through the halls of the palace, when he thinks about those childhood dreams, and where he is, and feels quite pleased with his life after all.

He wraps the sword up carefully in a spare bit of cloth and spends the rest of the day marking out his map in ink. He goes to dinner with inkstains on his fingers and a sense of having _done_ something. That, he realises, is what he’s been missing. If the marriage had gone ahead as planned, he might have had some responsibility; instead he’s just been drifting around. It’s been unmooring.

“You look like you had a good day,” the duke says at dinner.

“More work on my map,” Yusuf says, happily. He is slowly getting used to the fashion of dining here. It still seems unnecessarily complicated, and the chairs are terrible, but…well, no, the chairs are terrible. “Did you know you have a secret passage? Between your armoury and a corridor.”

The duke raises his eyebrows. “Is that going on the map?”

“Andromache asked that it didn’t.”

“Andromache is very cautious,” says the duke. “That’s not even the _good_ secret passage.”

Yusuf waits, but the duke continues eating, instead of saying anything else.

“Fine,” Yusuf says, eventually. “What’s the good secret passage?”

“I can’t tell you,” the duke says, innocently. Yusuf wishes, stupidly, that they actually were getting married so he could feel good about prying. Under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem right.

The rest of the meal passes in silence, again. Yusuf just isn’t very good at this.

*

Nothing else notable happens for a week or so. He spends a solid couple of days starting a fair copy of the map, and sketching the palace’s façade – as much as he can without leaving the grounds. He takes up Andromache on her invitation, and goes a few practice bouts with her and some of her men. Andromache beats him soundly, but nobody seems to think this is anything but expected. Otherwise he acquits himself reasonably well, and it’s as good a way to pass the time as any.

He didn’t come with clothes for rough work, and Andromache has Quỳnh (or one of the staff Quỳnh is in charge of, more likely) find him some of the garb the guards are practicing in – plain trousers and shirts, in the local fashion. He’s returning to his chambers, sweaty but full of well-being, when something catches his eye.

Yusuf isn’t returning to his chambers by the most direct route; Andromache took him on some very indirect routes the other day, and he now has a fair idea of how all the servants get around the palace, as well as its other inhabitants. He would feel worse about intruding into their space if it wasn’t for the fact that with this small a court, there are subsequently that many fewer servants. So if he ducks up to his rooms the fastest way, nobody is likely to be the wiser. What he isn’t expecting to see is Duke Nicolò doing the same thing. So it’s only natural that he follows him.

The route takes them around the west wing of the palace, almost to the kitchens. By this point Yusuf is expecting that they’ll leave; what he isn’t expecting is that the exit isn’t through a service entrance, but a small door that emerges into an alley. He’s so caught up that it takes him entirely by surprise when the duke stops at the door and looks back over his shoulder.

They’re in a very narrow and straight corridor; there is nowhere to hide. Yusuf stops dead. This is clearly not a ploy on the duke’s part to make it clear he knew Yusuf was there all along; he jumps, and takes a step back.

“I take it,” Yusuf says, “this is the _good_ secret passage.”

“Where did you _come_ from?”

“I was following you from back near the armoury.” Yusuf scratches the back of his head, aware suddenly of his plain clothes and somewhat disheveled appearance. “Captain Andromache invited me to practice with her and the guard.”

“ _Did_ she?” This is the most evident interest the duke has shown in him since – well, since he arrived. “And you just decided to follow me.”

Yusuf is aware there’s no really good explanation for this decision. “I…have a lot of time on my hands.”

“I suppose,” the duke says, sounding bewildered, “you do.” He looks towards the door he was about to leave through.

“Where are you going?” Yusuf can’t help sounding wistful. “Into the city?”

“Yes.” The duke frowns at him. “You haven’t left the palace. Have you?”

“Where would I go and what would I do?”

“Right.” The duke appears to make a decision. “If I take you with me, will you promise not to mention this to Captain Andromache?” He hesitates. “Or Lady Nile. Or – actually, anybody.”

Yusuf would have kept it quiet if the duke had asked him politely. But this he can’t resist.

“Of course,” he says, grinning, because this feels like it might be _fun_. The duke, for a wonder, smiles back.

*

“Where are we going?” Yusuf asks, once they’re out onto a main street. The duke, he now notices, is dressed as plainly as he is. “I don’t know the city at all.”

“Of course you don’t,” the duke says, and doesn’t shut up for the next hour as they walk, pointing enthusiastically in this direction and that as he tells Yusuf about the cathedral and the palace and the port. He loves his city, that much is clear. He stops at a street vendor and buys them both some flat bread with olives to eat as they walk. Yusuf gets oil on his fingers and so does the duke. The further they walk without Captain Andromache charging after them (as he had half-expected) or anybody noticing that the city’s duke is walking its streets, the more he enjoys himself. Duke Nicolò isn’t just more handsome like this than at their formal dinners; he is more likeable. He asks Yusuf questions about his travels, and his home.

They end up at the docks.

“I am going to ask again, your grace,” Yusuf says. “Is there a reason we’re here?”

“Nicolò,” the duke says, glancing around, though nobody is close enough to hear him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t an official expedition.”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf says. “Why are we here?”

“I wanted to take a look at the port myself,” the duke – Nicolò says, folding his arms and staring out across the harbour. “Nile keeps telling me about these repairs –”

“She’s right, then,” Yusuf says. “You can see it on that wharf, and that one; and the seawall does not look like it will survive many more storms.” He has travelled enough to see that.

“Trade is the lifeblood of the city. But the figures she gives me are very high.”

“What a pity, then,” Yusuf says, “that you are not about to make a marriage which could help with that.”

Nicolò looks, honestly, like he had not thought of this. It’s not much of a balm.

“It is hard,” Yusuf adds, “to keep believing that you don’t want the marriage for – reasons of state.” He looks back up the hill, towards the palace; at the sweep of the city. “You love the city, I can see that.”

“I do,” Nicolò says, following his gaze. “But…it wasn’t supposed to be mine. Until less than two years ago, my brother was going to be the duke. Everything since then has felt like a temptation. Who am I to know what the city needs, or its people?”

He’s avoided the question, Yusuf notices. “While you still live in its palace, you have to accept that responsibility, don’t you?”

“I,” Nicolò says, and then grabs Yusuf’s arm and hastily turns him in the other direction.

“What?” Yusuf asks.

“Try and look like a sailor, or something,” Nicolò hisses.

“Is it Andromache?”

“Not that bad.” Nicolò glances back. “No – don’t turn around – give it a while longer.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yusuf sees a man walk past; he is older than Yusuf or Nicolò, very dark, and dressed more finely than the sailors.

“It’s the portmaster,” Nicolò says quietly. “James Copley. Lady Nile has been meeting with him a great deal, lately.” His voice grows amused. “And growing fond of him, I think; he is a widower. But she tells me I am changing the topic if I ask her about that.”

“Perhaps she thinks that you aren’t allowed to give her advice about her own romantic life if you won’t take it from her.”

Nicolò gives him a slightly wounded look. “I am beginning to think you’re enjoying holding this against me.”

“Well,” Yusuf says. “Perhaps. A little.”

“I am not above bribery,” Nicolò says. “You came to the port; is there anywhere in the city you have been wanting to go?” He frowns. “You are hardly confined to the palace, you know.”

“I know.” Yusuf shrugs. “I did not care to venture out without purpose, that is all. But, since you ask…I have been running low on charcoal.”

“I have absolutely no idea where in this city one would buy charcoal for art,” Nicolò admits. “Want to find out?”

“Neither do I,” Yusuf says, “but I’ve been to more than one port, and on this side of the sea too; I bet I can find the right place.”

“I want to see this,” Nicolò says. “Where would you start?”

They make it back to the palace late enough that there is nothing left to do except bathe and change for dinner. Captain Andromache greets them.

“You, I’m giving an exception to because you’re new here,” she says to Yusuf. To Nicolò she says “ _You_ know better.”

“If I’m not safe in my own city,” he replies, “where am I safe? And I wasn’t even alone.”

She makes a noise of extreme exasperation.

Dinner is served in a much smaller room, with a table which – if not sized for two, precisely – is not ridiculously long.

“I realised,” Nicolò says, “that there was no reason for us to be dining in there. I wasn’t before you – before.”

They have, for the first time, a truly amiable conversation as they dine. It gives Yusuf the confidence to ask, as the meal draws to a close, whether Nicolò has heard from the – “Was it your bishop? Who had to rule on the…ah…annulment.”

“It was the bishop,” Nicolò says. “But not yet. He wrote for advice.” He frowns. “I am not sure why, but it would not be politic to demand the reason.”

“I see,” Yusuf says, trying to sound politely interested and nothing more.

“You could stay here,” Nicolò says abruptly. “If – I know you said it would not be a hardship – but even so.”

“I would have to find something to do,” Yusuf says. “I do not think I have it in myself to be decorative.”

“Become my mapmaker,” Nicolò says at once. “You seem to have a talent for it.”

“A kind thought,” Yusuf says. “I will think on it.”

*

It is a kind thought, Yusuf thinks as he goes to sleep that night, but it confuses him. If the duke – if Nicolò likes his company enough to say that he might stay, marriage or no, then why not simply marry him? Unless he is in love with someone else? But Yusuf did not come here expecting a romance, and he cannot think that a duke, even one who did not expect to inherit, would have been raised to expect one either.

Maybe Yusuf misinterpreted what he said that first day, and Nicolò had meant that it was a _husband_ he did not want. But nobody else Yusuf has spoken to has implied that, and Lady Nile especially had been frank with him. He does not think she would have left that out.

Nile is equally frank the next day when she comes to finds Nicolò in the library. They end up having something of an argument. Yusuf is in a far corner. He knows he should make himself known, but as he is about to step around a bookshelf, the duke says loudly “We have _talked_ about this, Nile!”. Yusuf shuts his mouth and retreats a step or two.

“You can argue with me, but you can’t argue with the numbers,” Nile is saying. “Either you raise taxes, or –”

“What I want you to explain to me is why we are discussing this in the first place! Our coffers should not be in such a poor state.”

“I don’t _know_.” Nile sounds upset. “I wish I had answers for you. Perhaps you need a better adviser. The records from before – before your mother’s death are not complete. If you had kept on –”

“I needed my own advice, and you are exactly what I need,” Nicolò assures her.

“Then take my advice,” she says, “and go through with this marriage your brother has so conveniently arranged for you.”

“It’s too convenient.”

Yusuf has to stifle a noise at that; _too convenient_?

“That’s not what you said when he arrived,” Nile says. “You said it was very inconvenient.” She sounds like she’s about to laugh, but her voice sobers. “Do you still really mean to go to the Church?”

The duke doesn’t respond. There’s a swishing sound, as of someone wearing skirts walking impatiently out.

Yusuf retreats back to his far corner and pretends to be very interested in the works of someone called Augustine (he isn’t) until he hears Nicolò leave; it takes a long time.

He has to consult his own map to figure out where he’s going now. He’s never had a reason to visit Lady Nile’s office before.

It’s in one of the parts of the palace that is actually reasonably busy, with clerks and the like. Nile looks surprised to see him there, but takes him into her office.

“Do you have questions about what will happen with your dowry?” she says. “Since the marriage hasn’t happened yet –”

“No,” Yusuf says, taking a seat. “I have something to admit: I was in the library just now.”

Nile rubs her temples. “I see. I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck convincing the duke to marry you.”

Yusuf shrugs. “I haven’t really been trying.”

“We need the marriage,” Nile says. “I think you need it, or at least you don’t object. Why is he so –” She breaks off. “That isn’t fair; I know why.”

“The thing is,” Yusuf says. “I heard you complaining about the records. Accounts, I assume.”

“Yes?” Nile sits back and gives him a look that says: continue, but this had better be good.

“One of the reasons I agreed to this marriage,” Yusuf says, “is that the thing I liked about my family’s business was travelling, and the thing my uncle needed was someone to do the accounts. Which I do not enjoy, when it is all my work, but I _am_ good at it. If you want someone to try and decipher why your finances are not as they should be, I can help.”

Nile just blinks at him. “You can draw – Nicolò told me about your map – Andromache says you have some skill with a sword, which from her is _high_ praise, and now you understand accounts? And –” She waves at Yusuf in a gesture he can’t quite interpret. “I am going to _lock him in a room with you_ until he comes to his senses on the matter.”

“Obviously your common sense is much better than his,” Yusuf says cheerfully, to cover his own panic at that summation, “but would you like my assistance, or not?”

“Yes,” Nile says, over the end of his sentence. She rings a bell on her desk. “I hope you didn’t have anything else planned this afternoon.”

*

Yusuf misses the evening meal, and goes to bed after midnight. Then he gets up and starts again. Nile is right there with him, and so are a number of her clerks, fetching the different records as Yusuf hunts down the trail of what is going on here. It’s not just the accounts. To solve the puzzle Yusuf has to ask for things like records of the ships that have come into port, and records of who dwells in the city, as well as the outlying lands.

“Explain this to me,” Nile says at one point. They are sitting together on the floor of her office, surrounded by scrolls and papers.

“It’s like a map,” Yusuf says. “Or a drawing. You start with the rough outlines, and then you have to fill in the fine details. Things spring to your eye that you didn’t notice until the things around them were sketched in. Forgive me, Lady Nile, but surely the duke had a chancellor, or some such. What happened to them?”

“Called away to the prince his brother’s court,” Nile says. “After his mother died. Really his brother should have sent him people back, but he didn’t. Which is one of the reasons I suspect he does not want Nicolò to remain duke here.”

“The thing that is springing to my eye,” Yusuf says, picking up the slate he has made his notes on, “is that this is a busy port, and for a long time – since before the duke became the duke – the coffers of _this_ city have not been enriched as they should be. Some of this is noble families here, which is the sort of thing that is only solved by persuading them it is in their interests to keep less for themselves. And some of it appears to be going to the prince’s court.”

“We have some obligations in that regard,” Nile says, “but not to this extent.” She taps the slate.

“It isn’t coming out where it should,” says Yusuf. “It looks like the mayor and the portmaster…or someone in their offices…do not know where their real allegiance lies. I don’t know if you can call it _evasion_ , under the circumstances…the tariffs and so on are still being collected.”

Nile swears. Yusuf isn’t expecting it.

“Excuse me,” she says. “But that is terrible news. I trust them. I know the duke does, too.”

“The duke may have mentioned,” Yusuf says, “that you considered the portmaster a particular friend.”

“The duke needs to mind his own business,” says Nile. Her face goes soft for a moment, but then hardens. “So I need – _he_ needs – to have some very difficult conversations. But in the short term, that won’t solve our problems, will it?”

“It won’t, if you want to make those repairs,” says Yusuf. “You need a new tax, or a loan, or…”

“Which will not make the great families happy, under the circumstances,” Nile finishes. She frowns at Yusuf. “Can’t you just seduce him? He definitely won’t get an annulment if you do that.”

Yusuf chokes. “I –”

“Never mind,” Nile says, ducking her head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Ah, never mind,” Yusuf says, for something to say. Then, of course, the duke appears in the door of Nile’s office.

“Nile,” he says. “By now you normally – what is going _on_ here?”

“Map-making,” Yusuf says after Nile doesn’t say anything, willing himself not to blush.

“Your grace,” Nile says, brushing off her skirts and standing up. “We need to talk, urgently.”

*

Yusuf excuses himself from the awkward conversation about taxes and allegiances. The thing is. He isn’t opposed to Nile’s suggestion.

The other thing is. He doesn’t know where to start.

It’s not that he’s avoided bedding anybody on _purpose._ It’s more that his aunt and uncle had a very busy household, and high standards for proper behaviour. When he’d travelled, it had always been with his uncle. Other men in their party might slip away; Yusuf had always been expected to behave himself. And he had. So beyond a stolen kiss or two, and some poetry he probably hadn’t been supposed to read…he knows how to do all the things Nile had listed off, so admiringly. He does _not_ know how to seduce Duke Nicolò. Nile’s plan of ‘locking him in a room with you’ would likely result only in a great deal of boredom. Yusuf is relatively sure that if the duke had any interest in seducing _him_ , he would have just gone ahead with the marriage.

He tries to imagine just kissing Nicolò. In a corner of the library, perhaps. Nicolò is very nearly his own height; it would be easy; he would only have to lean in. Say Nicolò liked it. Say he leaned closer, and put his hands on Yusuf. Then Yusuf could – he could –

That’s where his imagination fails him. And Yusuf likes to think normally he has quite a good imagination. It’s just that it becomes frustratingly vague, when he’s trying to imagine things he’s never done. It leaves him in an irritable haze of wanting and not being sure what he wants, or at least not how to have it, or whether it can be had at all.

Frustrated, he takes himself down to the armoury, where he can grab a wooden practice blade and sweat out his thoughts. He doesn’t even bother to change first. There’s nobody else in the small yard outside it, right now. Yusuf is halfway through a drill he hasn’t done for months, having trouble remembering it, when he feels the sense of being watched. He stops and turns. It’s the duke. Nicolò. He’s got a practice blade, too.

“I know why I’m feeling frustrated right now,” he says, “but what about you?”

“I’m not,” Yusuf lies, catching his breath. “But I have spent the past day and a half squinting at very bad handwriting.”

“That always puts me in a bad mood, too,” says Nicolò. “Want to go a bout? To five touches?”

“Seven,” Yusuf says. He licks his lips. There is something about this – both of them still in their everyday garb, not meant for heavy exercise, the line of his thoughts before he came here, a light in Nicolò’s eyes – that is…that makes him want to draw it out.

“Alright,” says Nicolò, and rushes him, without warning.

Yusuf barely evades that first thrust, but after that it’s much more even. Nicolò fights like his countrymen, heavy thrusts designed to get under plate armour and open it up. Yusuf hasn’t had to fight anyone in plate but recognises the style from seeing Andromache’s guards train. His own is faster, lighter, an art of swift cuts; normally he would go for the throat but they’re not wearing padding or helmets or anything, and it wouldn’t be safe. This isn’t safe, at all. He takes bruises on his right arm, twice, and once on his upper thigh; he gets Nicolò across the back of the knee, the elbow, across his chest. They’re both panting, losing energy. Yusuf is vaguely aware he’s half-hard, his blood up. Nicolò’s eyes are bright. Yusuf’s mind is, for once, completely clear of any worry or uncertainty.

Yusuf swings and Nicolò leans under it, then tries to do something clever, a side-step that almost turns him around. Yusuf sees an opening and takes it. He hooks Nicolò’s leg out from under him, hits his wrist with the hilt of his blade; Nicolò’s tired hand opens and his sword drops, and a second later he’s on his back in the dust with Yusuf kneeling over him, wooden blade at his throat.

“My bout,” Yusuf says, in triumph, and then has to shake his head and repeat it in Nicolò’s language.

Nicolò laughs, dusty and with a bruise rising on one cheekbone. “Yes.” Yusuf only has a second to realise Nicolò’s leg is wrapping around him before he’s tumbled over himself, on his back, breath knocked out of him. Nicolò looms over him now.

“It’s never over until it’s over,” he informs him, gleeful.

“Seven touches,” Yusuf says. “Not wrestling.”

“Maybe another day,” Nicolò says. He’s still catching his breath. There are drops of sweat gathering on his upper lip. He’s so close over Yusuf, their bodies almost touching. Yusuf isn’t half-hard anymore. He’s burning up.

Yusuf puts a hand on Nicolò’s chin, feeling the beginnings of evening scruff against his palm. Somehow, that’s arousing too. Nicolò’s eyes go wide, and –

Something hard hits Yusuf in the side; it’s followed by something stuff but soft, which covers his face. He yelps. So does Nicolò; another hard thing rolls down onto Yusuf’s leg, presumably after hitting Nicolò.

“The first rule of practicing here,” Andromache’s voice informs them, “is that we don’t do it without _helmets_ and _padding_ , because otherwise we can _get our heads knocked in_.”

“Our heads are fine,” Nicolò calls back, sitting up on his heels. Yusuf wriggles out from under him, and sits up as well. Andromache is standing over them, and he’s aware of exactly how dusty and sweaty and flushed they both are.

“The second rule of practicing here,” she adds, “is that if you want to do anything else, you take it somewhere else.” Her eyes fix on Nicolò. “I know I’ve told _you_ that one before.”

“We went to seven touches,” Nicolò says, standing. He offers Yusuf a hand. Yusuf pushes aside the padding Andromache had thrown over them, and takes it to stand. Touching Nicolò again sends a bolt down his spine. “That’s all.”

“Get out of here,” his guard captain said. “The laundresses are going to be beside themselves.”

Yusuf looks down; she’s not wrong.

“As always, I appreciate your diligence,” the duke tells her.

“I know you do,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “Maybe try and appreciate it a little more by not doing anything stupid.”

Yusuf can’t come up with a good reason to invite Nicolò back to his rooms, and by the time they’re back in the palace, the sweat has started to cool and so has his ardour. But for a second there, he had it; he had Nicolò. He just needs to…get back there again.

Because it would be good for the city, and less embarrassing for his family. Obviously. He is a dutiful nephew. 

*

This plan is foiled somewhat when he dines alone because the duke is still meeting with Nile and some of his other advisors. The next day, the palace is in an uproar, servants rushing everywhere. The best way to find out why, he decides, is to ask the person who runs the palace. That’s not Nicolò.

“The duke is having a midsummer ball,” Quỳnh says. She’s in the main hall – which Yusuf found, eventually – inspecting the tapestries, and making notes.

“That’s not for another three weeks.”

“There are a lot of preparations to be made.” She looks him up and down. “Which gives me a thought. Do you know how to dance?”

“Of course I know how to dance,” Yusuf says. “The question you should ask is, do I know the dances they dance here, which I do not.”

She makes a note on her slate. “Then we’ll have to fix that as well.”

“I’m coming to the ball?” Yusuf says, stupidly.

“You’re the duke’s fiancé.”

“He’s trying to put a stop to that.”

“Not in the next three weeks, he’s not going to.” She cocks her head. “Besides. You could just challenge him to another practice bout or two.”

Yusuf narrows his eyes. “I take it you are a good friend of Captain Andromache.”

“We’re married,” says Quỳnh, which is something Yusuf had failed to learn in all his time here. “A happy state you will hopefully share sometime soon.”

“Have you noticed,” Yusuf says, “that everybody in this palace wants me to be married to the duke except – and this is quite important – the duke?”

“Hurry up, then.”

Yusuf would – in fact, he’s absolutely willing to give it a go – but Nile and the duke spend the next three weeks embroiled in a series of meetings with the mayor, the portmaster, and a number of other prominent people in the city; Nile keeps introducing Yusuf to them. She also recruits him to go over the books again, and write up what he has found. He could _use_ a practice bout to work out the strain from that, but Nicolò is never available. They meet only over dinner, and then briefly, both of them tired.

Instead, Yusuf gets dancing lessons, courtesy of Quỳnh and Andromache, and fitted for clothes for a ball, courtesy of Nile.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with what you wear,” she adds hastily, “but we want to send the right message.”

“Which is?”

“That you’re definitely getting married to the duke. Any day now.”

“Again,” Yusuf says, “I’m not the person you need to talk to about that,” and suffers through a number of fittings. Breeches such as they wear for formal events here are _very stupid_ pieces of clothing.

In what little time he has left over, he’s re-drafting his map, in ink and on parchment, with careful renderings of the palace’s façade on each side. It’s going to be a present. He doesn’t know yet whether it will be something to remember him by, or something else.

He’s also waking up from restless dreams and taking himself in hand more mornings than not, because he still doesn’t know exactly what he wants from Nicolò, _with_ him, but after that bout his body knows he wants it.

He manages to ask him about the betrothal again, once.

“Oh, no, still no word,” Nicolò says hastily.

“And no chance you’ve changed your mind,” Yusuf says, feeling bold. The silence that hangs after that is absolute.

“I would tell you,” Nicolò breathes, then hides his face in his winecup. Yusuf doesn’t look away. It feels, for the first time since he came here, like he has – he can’t say the upper hand. Like he has a hand in this, at all.

Midsummer eve arrives in the blink of an eye. Nile walks Yusuf through the protocol of an event like this; it is a little different to how such a thing would be at home. She is a little frantic, and clearly tired. 

“You don’t have to join any dance you don’t want to,” she assures him, “but it would be useful if you did.”

“I like being useful, you know,” he tells her. “I wouldn’t have gone back to accounting books for any other reason.”

“You don’t have to be useful to stay here,” Nile returns, her eyes softening. “But I’m grateful when you choose to help.”

“Still sure you want your portmaster?” he says, to tease her. “I might be free, sometime soon.”

She laughs. “Yes. No. I don’t know, it depends – thank you, Yusuf.”

At least he can make someone a little happier.

“Will you dance?” he asks Nicolò, the night before.

“I have to,” Nicolò says. “At least once or twice.”

“That makes two of us,” Yusuf says. “Tell me if there’s any dances I _shouldn’t_ join.”

“Of course.” Nicolò’s eyes rest on him for a long second before he says “We will have some guests from beyond the duchy, as well; my brother has sent his apologies, but there will be visitors from his court.”

“Your brother, who arranged the betrothal.”

“Yes.”

“Does he know that it wasn’t to your liking?”

“I haven’t written to him, yet.” Nicolò toys with his food. “But I suspect the bishop will have. He has not advised me one way or the other on what he thinks I should do.”

“I suspect,” Yusuf says, “you aren’t minded to do what he thinks, anyway.”

He’s beginning to wonder – in a deeply tentative way – how much of Nicolò’s first response to the betrothal had been that. If he reads the matter right at all.

“I never have been,” Nicolò admits. Yusuf’s breath catches for a second, and then Nicolò changes the topic.

*

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Kaysani, betrothed to Duke Nicolò!” a footman announces, very loudly, as Yusuf steps into the main hall, which has been utterly transformed; there are so many candles there is a very real risk of fire, and what isn’t lit is draped in bright cloth and the best tapestries. Yusuf feels transformed a little, too, dressed like all the other men here; but at heart he feels still himself.

He sees the mayor and his wife, and the portmaster, and all the dignitaries Nile has been introducing him to, as well as many she hasn’t. He sees Andromache in a dress, for once, though he has no doubt she could fight in it as easily as her uniform, and Nile splendid in yellow, and Nicolò –

Nicolò is in green and silver, which Yusuf appreciates at the same time as he knows it’s probably not for him. His hair shines under the light. Yusuf has a sudden, newfound appreciation for breeches when they’re on Nicolò’s legs. It would almost be scandalous except that it’s the same for every man in the room. Actually, Yusuf isn’t sure it’s still not scandalous.

He goes over and does exactly as Nile had told him, when he asked her, it is appropriate for him to do; he takes Nicolò’s hand, and kisses it. Nicolò’s hand tightens, just a fraction, around Yusuf’s. He doesn’t have any other reaction, but when Yusuf looks up, Nicolò’s eyes are fixed on him. It reminds him of their bout with swords.

“I should make some introductions,” Nicolò says. “I have been remiss in that regard, it seems.”

He keeps his word, and does not quibble at any point when they are asked when the marriage date will be set, only says some vague things about arrangements. He looks at Yusuf a lot when he doesn’t quibble. Yusuf decides to be gracious about it, even though what he wants to do is drag him aside and ask what he’s actually thinking.

One of the introductions he makes is to a man called Merrick who, he tells Yusuf, was once chancellor for the duchy. Yusuf would have a _lot_ of questions for him but it isn’t his place, nor the right time. He catches Nile looking at the man with daggers in her eyes, though.

Yusuf does have to dance, a lot; a lot of people want to talk to him, and they have many questions about his family and how the betrothal came to be. You can’t really talk in the formal dances they do here, with so many lines and changes of partner, but you can before and after. On the dancefloor he touches hands with Nile and Andromache and Nile’s portmaster and the mayor and the mayor’s wife and Quỳnh, lovely in red, but not Nicolò. He tries to speak with the mayor and portmaster both, because he is curious about what he and Nile discovered, and what sort of men they really are, but they avoid him. That is probably its own answer. They also seem to be avoiding Nicolò’s brother’s man Merrick.

He loses track of Nicolò until a dance is called that Yusuf particularly recognises, because Quỳnh told him it was considered very daring; the volta. It features a lot of leaps, and lifting and turning your partner. The centre of the hall clears out a little; it is well into the night, and he can see people are tired.

Nicolò appears, as if by magic. He does not look tired, which also must be magic. “Are you still dancing?”

“Yes,” Yusuf says, and lets Nicolò lead him out. The dance goes by in a blur of light, of motion, of Nicolò under his hands. He hasn’t touched him this much – not ever, since he came to this city. All he remembers afterwards is the music, and Nicolò’s eyes, which he cannot look away from.

Somehow they end up at the back of the hall, afterwards, near one of the small side doors hidden behind a large vase filled with foliage and flowers.

“It will go at least an hour or two more,” Nicolò says. “And it is nearly midnight.”

“I need some air,” Yusuf says, fanning himself. “If we –”

“- go out here, we can get to the courtyard,” Nicolò finishes, “but I think by now you know this place better than I do.”

Yusuf is aware that there are still eyes on them – how can there not be – but heads turn when a new dance is called, and without the need for consultation, they both slip out the side door.

They don’t make it as far as the courtyard, though. Nicolò stops and turns to Yusuf, saying, “I hope you enjoyed that; we were making shameless use of you, I think you know.”

Yusuf says “Yes, I know,” and – buoyed up on that dance and the unreality of the evening, the way it all seems a moment out of time, despite the heavy undercurrents of politics – kisses Nicolò.

Nicolò kisses him back. At first it’s almost polite; Yusuf is disappointed. Then he puts his hands on Nicolò’s trim waist, where he’s been itching to put them all evening, and Nicolò stops being polite. He buries his fingers in Yusuf’s beard, licking demandingly against the seam of Yusuf’s lips and then, when Yusuf’s mouth opens on a moan, plundering it like he’s been waiting forever for the chance. He presses in with his body, too, pushing Yusuf against the wall. One quick hand slides down Yusuf’s chest, under his jacket, stopping to rub over one of Yusuf’s nipples. The soft white linen of his shirt feels almost coarse against it, but it’s alarmingly good. Yusuf hadn’t known they could _do_ that. He gasps against Nicolò’s mouth.

Nicolò chuckles, the vibrations travelling through them both. It’s the sound of someone who is getting what he wants, but it’s also joyful. Yusuf pulls back to kiss the corner of his mouth, the hinge of his jaw, to feel him smiling. Then Nicolò captures his mouth again, insistently, and slides his hand down, across the line between Yusuf’s body and his leg. It curves under Yusuf’s thigh and hitches it up and a little to the side, as he slides his leg between Yusuf’s, pressing in so Yusuf’s cock is caught deliciously between them.

Yusuf is harder than he’s ever been in his life; his shirt is already sticky against his back, from the night of dancing; he’s going to come right here against the wall if Nicolò keeps this up, and he doesn’t know if he wants to or, more importantly, if he’s _supposed_ to. But he can’t stop grinding against Nicolò, can’t stop kissing him. He can feel Nicolò hard against his hip, like a brand. Nicolò moves his other hand to cup the side of Yusuf’s face. Yusuf’s hands tighten on his waist; his hips jerk, out of his conscious control; absolutely nobody, no dirty story he has heard or poem he has read, told him that it would be like _this_. He’s really not sure who’s being seduced here. He thinks it might be him.

“Are you close?” Nicolò whispers against his mouth, sounding delighted. His hand tightens on Yusuf’s thigh.

“Yes,” Yusuf has to admit. “You do this to me.”

Nicolò makes a sort of muffled moan, kisses Yusuf very hard, and then says “Go on, go on, I want to see this.”

If Yusuf had any thoughts left at all for being embarrassed, he might have been embarrassed at the fact that this is what does it for him, Nicolò saying _I want to see this_. But he doesn’t, because he’s too busy coming against Nicolò’s hip, his thoughts dissolving into white fire, pleasure pulsing through him until he’s not sure where he ends and Nicolò starts.

Nicolò mutters something _very_ profane – if Yusuf understands it correctly – against Yusuf’s mouth, then draws back a little.

“I think,” he says, “we should take this to my chambers.”

Yusuf nods frantically, chest still heaving; his mind has cleared _just_ enough to consider the inevitable prospect of someone – probably Andromache; it feels like a thing Andromache would do – coming across them.

*

In point of fact they take themselves to Yusuf’s chambers, because they’re much closer. It takes just long enough to get there that he starts to feel sticky and remember he doesn’t know what he’s doing. But as soon as the door shuts behind them, Nicolò is throwing off his jacket, swearing under his breath when the tight sleeves catch. These breeches do absolutely nothing to disguise how aroused he is. Somehow it seems even more obscene, and also arousing, than if he were naked. On the other hand, Yusuf is perfectly willing to put that to the test by seeing him naked.

“Let me,” he says, untucking Nicolò’s shirt. Nicolò does not let him get any further than that. He wrestles himself out of his own shirt, divests Yusuf of his jacket, and walks him back until he’s sitting and then lying down on the bed.

“Let _me_ ,” Nicolò says. Yusuf’s attention is less on him and more on the trail of hair leading down across the beautiful soft curve of his stomach, into his breeches. Yusuf wants to follow it, with his mouth. He’s still not sure what he’s going to do after that but at this point he’s willing to make it up as he goes along. It’s worked so far.

This plan is foiled by Nicolò taking all Yusuf’s clothing off, piece by piece, stopping to kiss his skin as it is revealed; on the shoulder, the curve of a rib, his hipbone. He moves back up to tease Yusuf’s nipples again with his tongue, and Yusuf is clutching the bedsheets, getting hard _again_ somehow. He’d thought he had some idea of what was involved in this and he doesn’t know _anything_.

“How do you want me?” Nicolò murmurs, crouched over Yusuf on his hands and knees, his hair mussed where Yusuf has run his fingers through it. He reminds Yusuf of a great cat, poised and predatory.

“I don’t know,” Yusuf blurts out.

“Too many choices?” Nicolò grins.

“Too much theory and no practice,” Yusuf says, feeling his cheeks heat.

Nicolò’s eyes go very wide. “You’re a _virgin_?”

Yusuf had managed to forget the residual stickiness at his groin, but he’s remembering it now. “Perhaps not anymore?”

“Hnnnngh,” Nicolò says, and buries his face in the crook of Yusuf’s neck. One hand clutches at Yusuf’s side. “I don’t want to – _fuck_ , Yusuf. I would have been…much more respectful.”

“Please keep not being respectful. It’s working.”

“I want to _take you apart_ ,” Nicolò mumbles, into his neck, “please let me.”

“Yes,” Yusuf says, “yes, please, however you like.”

Nicolò makes another vaguely incoherent sound and says “You have to tell me if you don’t like anything, though, you have to,” and Yusuf agrees more because it seems likely to keep things going and maybe get Nicolò out of those breeches, finally, than because he’s listening. In the end, though, it isn’t a problem. Yusuf ends up staying on his back, while Nicolò licks and mouths at his cock until he’s hard again. When he starts rubbing at the tender skin between Yusuf’s balls and his hole, and then lower, Yusuf can’t help tensing. Nicolò rubs his face against Yusuf’s leg, prickly this late into the evening, and says “Tell me, tell me, but it’s going to be alright, I promise,” and Yusuf closes his eyes and puts a hand on his own cock, teasing the head very lightly.

Nicolò isn’t lying, and Yusuf doesn’t have to say anything, except that Nicolò keeps asking him, while he works oil-drenched fingers _inside_ Yusuf, if it feels good, if Yusuf knows how good he looks like this. (Yusuf isn’t sure where he got the oil and really doesn’t care enough to ask.)

Yusuf’s vocabulary is limited to things like ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘Nicolò’, because it does feel good, and then it feels better, and then Nicolò does something with his fingers and this is yet another thing Yusuf didn’t know about his body; that it could make him swear and feel like he is falling apart from pleasure without anybody even touching his cock. Yusuf, at this point, is clutching the sheets again.

By the time Nicolò sinks into him Yusuf feels adrift from everything except Nicolò and the way he’s reshaped Yusuf, made it so he can bury his hard length inside him and send lightning up Yusuf’s spine, a continuous circuit as Nicolò moves that has Yusuf babbling in Arabic, knowing Nicolò won’t understand it but not nearly able to remember any other words. It’s freeing. In Arabic, he can tell Nicolò that he’s beautiful, that Yusuf has wanted him for so long, that he wants to marry _him_. Not just a duke.

Nicolò doesn’t understand, but he talks, too, frantic murmurs in Yusuf’s ear as he fucks Yusuf, steady and controlled and direct, a delicious expression of who Yusuf knows him to be. “Yes, _Yusuf,_ I wanted to do this the other day, when we fought, I have wanted, I have wanted, you are _perfect_ , it isn’t fair –”

Yusuf comes again when Nicolò takes his cock in hand, with barely a stroke, all over his own chest and so hard that a few stray drops hit his lips. Yusuf licks them off, salty-slick. He thinks he hears Nicolò sob as he clutches Yusuf’s thighs and seizes up with his own release.

The room is very silent, all of a sudden, except for their breathing. Nicolò pulls out of him, carefully. Yusuf can feel Nicolò’s come trickling between his thighs and it makes him shudder, but not from distaste. He feels wrecked. He’d like to be wrecked a lot more.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says, very quietly, and kisses him on the forehead.

Yusuf puts a hand on the back of his neck, so he stays there, cheek against Yusuf’s forehead. “That was…thank you.”

“I think _I_ should be thanking you,” Nicolò says, sounding quite fervent about it.

This seems ridiculous to Yusuf because he doesn’t remember doing a lot except being, as Nicolò put it, taken apart. “I don’t think so. But perhaps you will give me the opportunity to keep making up for how much I don’t know, about this.”

“I intend to,” Nicolò says, wriggling down a bit so their heads are next to each other, his eyes burning. “Especially as we – as I definitely won’t get that annulment now. Not without a great deal of fuss. Or both of us lying through our teeth. So you might be stuck with me.”

Yusuf practically chokes on his next words. “I never wanted one in the first place!”

“I know.” Nicolò pats, carefully, at Yusuf’s hair, evidently realising that sticking his fingers in wouldn’t be helpful. “So…why wait this long to try this? It would have worked before tonight.”

Yusuf counts off the reasons on his fingers. “You didn’t want to marry me; I had to assume, reasonably, you didn’t want me; I _didn’t know how_ ; Andromache interrupted us – should I go on?” He rubs a thumb across Nicolò’s forehead, as if to smooth out the lines of his frown. It works, because the action makes Nicolò smile. “Nicolò. Tell me what you have been thinking, these last three months; I certainly cannot understand it.”

“A lot of very contradictory things.” Nicolò wriggles around again, so he can put Yusuf’s head on his shoulder. “That I disliked being surprised; that I did not fully trust my brother’s motives; that I had had to do things, these last two years, again and again, because my mother and father and brother were dead, and my life was upside down, and I did not want to do one more; that, having met you and refused, I could not write back to the bishop and say _never mind_ ; that, having met you and liked you, I trusted my brother’s motives even less, because you were…”

“Too convenient,” Yusuf supplies.

“Yes.” Nicolò frowns. “Wait.”

“I was in the library. You should try not to have loud arguments with your closest advisor in public spaces.”

“Ummmm, yes. Perhaps.” He coughs. “Anyway. Finally, that I had always been intended to go to the Church, and the idea of doing that anyway, after everything, was something to cling to, until…it wasn’t.”

“You didn’t fuck me just now like someone who was planning on a life of celibacy.”

“Giving something up is more meaningful when you know what it is, surely.”

Yusuf snorts. “I don’t actually understand that part of your faith; I will take your word for it. Anyway. Nile told me, that first day, that you were a good ruler and your brother was not, and nobody wanted to lose you. I have no information about your brother, but I think she’s right about you. Marry me, take the damned dowry, fix your port, get your mayor and your portmaster into line, and be a good ruler for your people. Please, Nicolò.” He feels himself flush before he even says the next part, but manages to say it anyway. “Think about the compensations.”

“Are you,” Nicolò says, sounding half-outraged, “trying to seduce _me_ for the sake of _my_ city?”

“I think I _have_ seduced you.” Yusuf shrugs, though actually he still isn’t entirely sure about it. “I thought I wanted to agree to this marriage because I could be politely ignored, do art, and not stare at account books all day; it turns out I like having things to do. Even if they are account books, occasionally. And helping you with your very nice city.”

“Fine. Alright. Consider me seduced, and the betrothal agreed to,” says Nicolò, as though this is a question, when he is lying there naked and looking – not that Yusuf is a great judge of such things – thoroughly well-fucked. “You can keep your own chambers, if you want,” he adds very seriously, “God knows we have enough of them in this place, but I think I am going to have to insist on occasional visits to them, rather than politely ignoring you.”

“Are we going to add that as an amendment to the betrothal contract?”

“No.” Nicolò smiles against him. “That’s between us.”

“Alright,” Yusuf says, feeling sleepy and profoundly satisfied. He wakes up a little when Nicolò gets up and gently cleans him, but then Nicolò climbs back into bed and Yusuf is, between one blink and the next, asleep.

*

He wakes up, not the next morning, but barely an hour or two later; he can feel it, the gritty drag on his eyelids of not nearly enough sleep. Nicolò is sitting bolt upright. There is a single candle, still lit, on a table a few feet away from the bed. It is nearly out. It is enough light for him to see several people in the room, none of them dressed like servants. One of them – Yusuf nearly makes a noise – is the former chancellor, now Nicolò’s brother’s man. Merrick.

“Your grace,” he says. He sounds like a weasel. “It took us a while to find you here. I understood the marriage was off.”

“It’s back on,” says Nicolò. “Get out of our rooms.”

Yusuf does not do well when woken up like this, but things are coming to him, slowly. Merrick doesn’t look armed. He has three men who are, but they’re not in full chainmail or anything like, only breastplates. Nicolò and he hadn’t worn even daggers to the ball, and there’s nothing close enough to – or no. There is.

“Never mind,” says Merrick. “Now, you won’t be hurt, unless –”

Yusuf makes a confused noise and thrashes a bit, like he’s waking up properly, and then rolls off the side of the bed.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Merrick says, but he only sounds annoyed, “someone grab him – I suppose we should let them dress –”

The first guard screams and collapses onto the bed, which is probably a bit startling for Nicolò, but Yusuf doesn’t have time to worry about that. The reason he screams and collapses is that Yusuf has grabbed the sword under his bed and sliced across the backs of his unprotected legs.

“What are you – we need them _alive_!” Merrick screeches. Yusuf rolls to his feet and dodges a sword thrust from a taller man who clearly hasn’t listened to that instruction, which is actually all to the good because Yusuf is entirely naked and would be incredibly easy to disable; as it is, the thrust, with all the man’s weight behind it, gives Yusuf a second to take his swordhand clean off. The other thing about this sword, once he’d taken it back here and given it the attention it needed, is that it’s now _sharp_.

By this point there’s quite a lot of blood and yelling and it’s a miracle nobody has put out the candle, frankly. Then Nicolò bashes the third man in the kidneys with Yusuf’s good easel, which is very upsetting because the easel gives a distinct _crack_ , and does put the guttering candle out with the backswing. It’s dark and bloody chaos for a few nightmarish moments before the door bursts open and it’s Andromache, still in her court dress and as Yusuf had predicted to himself, not looking any less dangerous for it. The uniformed guardsmen with her – one of whom is carrying a lantern, so they can all actually see – are just normally dangerous.

“Captain Andromache,” Nicolò says, managing to be ducal even though he’s as naked and dishevelled as Yusuf, though admittedly slightly less covered in blood. “Please arrest these men. _Especially_ my brother’s ambassador.” He surveys the scene. “And I suppose find them some medical attention.”

“This _is_ a good sword,” Yusuf says to her. “Thank you for the loan.”

“Your timing is _terrible_ ,” Andromache informs him.

“I think it’s excellent, myself,” Nicolò says. He and Yusuf share a sharp grin. “Now. If one of you would also hand us some clothes…? Yes, that chest over there. _Thank_ you.”

*

The thing Nicolò seems to be most vexed by, the next day, is Andromache’s flat insistence that the _good_ secret passage _has_ to be blocked over – it had allowed Merrick to get armed men into the palace.

“We can leave the other one, if you want to sneak around,” she says. Nicolò sighs.

Merrick refuses to say anything, even dazed and with his own men’s blood on him and Andromache’s sword at his throat, but Nile says it’s not hard to work out what the plan was.

“It’s more or less what I thought as soon as Yusuf showed up and we looked at the betrothal contract again,” she says. She’s had as little sleep as the rest of them; there are dark circles under her eyes. “Your brother wants to add to his direct domain. Additional funds had gone into your father’s coffers for years, without your mother’s knowledge; it would be so much easier to have the title, and the city, himself. He expected you to reject the marriage, and take up your previous vocation. And it seemed as if you would. But then…you did not, and you did not, and we began to ask questions about the accounts, and he decided to take a more direct approach.” She shakes her head. “You know what was holding things up, truly? That the Church saw no reason to offer you an annulment of your betrothal, having been minded in the last few years to clamp down on such offers among the nobility for mere convenience, and he was arguing with them over it.”

“How did you piece all that together?” Yusuf wants to know.

“James,” she says, her lips thinning. “And Sébastien. They…confessed is not exactly the right word, because they were doing nothing _differently_ from how they had been doing it for years, but…it is not the wrong one either.”

“Can we trust them in their positions, Nile?” asks Nicolò.

“I’m not the right person to ask.” She shakes her head again. “You know why.”

“Also.” Nicolò frowns. “My brother…my mother’s other son, I mean. His death –”

“- was convenient, but accidental,” Nile finishes. “So far as I can tell, or Andromache can. It was considered at the time, I promise you.”

“I will think on what to do, with my…no longer quite so trusted men,” Nicolò says. “There is the opinion of the great families in the city to consider, too. Regarding the marriage –”

“My advice is, do it quickly,” Nile says at once. And so, after all that, they do – two days later. It is very odd to Yusuf to be married in a church, but the contract is sensible enough, and nobody is requiring him to convert, or pretend to it; only that they be married by the rules of Nicolò’s faith.

Yusuf kisses Nicolò, in the square in front of the cathedral, and wonders what it would have been like to come to this day as he had expected to. Marrying a near-complete stranger; expecting to be left to his own devices; if not lost, then far from home.

Instead he has people he considers friends, and a number of duties he is not like to shed anytime soon, and he is marrying Nicolò, no stranger at all. When he kisses him, it is not a promise of things yet to come, but a reminder of things already between them, choices already happily made.

He likes it.

He gives Nicolò the finished map of the palace – secret passages omitted – as a wedding present. Nicolò calls it the kindest gift he has been given and asks Quỳnh to have it framed.

The next day, two letters arrive. The first is for Nicolò.

“I am told,” Nicolò says, reading it with a very odd expression, “that with all the circumstances considered, the Church sees no objection to my betrothal being dissolved.”

“I suppose your brother won his argument,” says Yusuf.

“Too late,” Nicolò says, throwing it aside. “We’re married.” And that is that. “What’s your letter?”

It is from his uncle and aunt, who inquire – with some urgency – why it is that they have not heard from Yusuf, nor heard word that the marriage has been finalised. They know that he arrived safely.

“I have,” Yusuf says, “been a very poor correspondent, and my family do not know what is happening. I should write at once.”

“You should,” Nicolò agrees. “I have a very specific letter to write to my brother, to accompany his men, when I send them back.” His smile is grim, but certain.

Yusuf kisses him and goes to fetch ink and pen, with a much lighter heart than he thinks Nicolò has right now. He begins.

_To my most honoured and beloved aunt and uncle: I am pleased to report that my marriage is a success._

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this kink meme prompt](https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/5552.html?thread=1902256#cmt1902256):
> 
> _Yusuf/Nicolò - A classic arranged marriage trope, but Yusuf is the nervous groom who gets shipped off to a strange country._
> 
> _Do with this what you will._


End file.
